'Make it Rain' app: The secret to its $50K per day success

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I first heard about the notorious app called “Make it Rain: The Love of Money” by Space Inch, LLC, while blithely scrolling through my email and seeing a headline from Business Insider about the app making $50,000 per day in ad revenue and in-app purchases. Several days later, I’d see it in action, in the hands of a 5th-grade student as I chaperoned a school trip to Cincinnati.

Bingo! Once I see apps in the hands of children who like to play them, I know the apps are a hit. Being around kids quite a bit and learning their likes and dislikes is like having your own little personal focus group. (Note to self: Figure out how much that app called “Heads Up!” is pulling down from the iTunes app store, because I’ve seen plenty of kids playing that put-your-phone-on-your-forehead-and-have-your-friends-guess-the-words-on-the-screen game lately. And it’s quite a hoot listening to 11-year-olds trying to figure out songs from my heyday. And can I mention how cool it is to have the video-recording feature of your friends’ reactions?)

Anyway, back to making it rain.

“Do you know that app makes $50,000 per day?” I asked the young girl, as I watched her swiping and swiping and swiping away digital cash in a rapid motion. Even when I repeated the app’s earnings to my husband, I had to second guess myself.

Was it really making $50,000 per day? Or was it a more reasonable sounding $50,000 per month?

No, turns out the earnings are reportedly $50,000 per day – not bad for an app that just launched in April and cost $10,000 to develop, plus another $1,000 spent in marketing in order to acquire players. (Heck, that might be worth charging 11 grand on a credit card or using other financial sources in order to gain the funding – since you’d be able to pay it back in full as soon as the cash flows in.)

By watching the child I saw playing “Make it Rain” in action, coupled with a review of the customer reviews of the app on iTunes, it seems the success of the app is right in front of our faces.

“I remember when I could just look away from my screen and swipe without the worry of pop up ads exiting me from the game. But now I feel like I have to be glued to the screen to avoid touching an ad,” wrote one reviewer, and looking at the game from my Internet guru marketing lens, I see that’s a big reason why this game is earning so much in ad revenue.

Secondly, it amazes me that people pay actual money for fake money – and I don’t even think they have a pride-inducing leaderboard!

That logic, of course, coupled with the addictive nature of the game seems to be a winning strategy – plus a boss-butt marketing strategy. Everybody knows the “make it rain” terminology, and savvy folks know that it changed from the basic throwing-cash-in-the-air motion to a more recent swipe-cash-off-my-phat-stacks strategy that’s perfect for a gaming motion.

Now, let me begin brainstorming any other real-life motions that would translate well to the app world. Adieu.